Daylight Infrared with PC100 et al. is possible...

I just bought a PC-100 (similar to PC-110 and TRV-20),
and was wondering if I could easily enable daylight-infrared
capability, since I like shooting IR landscapes in video (see:
www.ferrario.com/camcorder-comparison.htm , the TRV-9
review, for frame-grabs from IR video footage). It turned out
to be easy. The aperture is normally locked wide open when
IR-mode is engaged, and the manual exposure and program
modes are disabled, limiting control of exposure and causing
great overexposure in daylight (the IR mode is more sensitive
than the normal-color mode). I added a 37-> 52mm step-up
ring to retain a 37mm no. 87 IR gel filter and to adapt my 52mm
filters. I added first a circular polarizer, then a linear-type,
and rotated one relative to the other until light transmission
was minimized. I held these in position with a wide rubber
band. Video shot in medium-bright daylight and lower was
well exposed (and surprisingly sharp, given that the aperture
was locked at f1.8), and looked good (B&W-mode engaged),
but bright sunlight scenes were still a bit overexposed.
Adding a 4X neutral-density filter solved this, but gain
effects started to show as the light level lowered a bit (one
could rotate one polarizer to correct this, or remove the ND
filter...). I also tried adding a Sony VCL-ES06, which also
looked sharp... BTW, this DOES NOT work for "X-ray"
effects with clothes, so don't bother - and don't tell Sony it
is so easy to defeat their attempts at protecting our moral
values...;-) There is also a mechanical way to do this - by
defeating an internal switch (described on bealecorner.com?),
but I did not attempt it.

Daylight Infrared with PC100 et al. is possible...

I just bought a PC-100 (similar to PC-110 and
TRV-20), and was wondering if I could easily
enable daylight-infrared capability, since I
like shooting IR landscapes in video (see:
www.ferrario.com/camcorder-comparison.htm ,
the TRV-9 review, for frame-grabs from IR
video footage). It turned out to be easy. The
aperture is normally locked wide open when
IR-mode is engaged, and the manual exposure
and program modes are disabled, limiting
control of exposure and causing great
overexposure in daylight (the IR mode is more
sensitive than the normal-color mode). I added
a 37-> 52mm step-up ring to retain a 37mm no.
87 IR gel filter and to adapt my 52mm filters.
I added first a circular polarizer, then a
linear-type, and rotated one relative to the
other until light transmission was minimized.
I held these in position with a wide rubber
band. Video shot in medium-bright daylight
and lower was well exposed (and surprisingly
sharp, given that the aperture was locked at
f1.8), and looked good (B&W-mode engaged),
but bright sunlight scenes were still a bit
overexposed. Adding a 4X neutral-density
filter solved this, but gain effects started
to show as the light level lowered a bit (one
could rotate one polarizer to correct this,
or remove the ND filter...). I also tried
adding a Sony VCL-ES06, which also looked
sharp... BTW, this DOES NOT work for "X-ray"
effects with clothes, so don't bother - and
don't tell Sony it is so easy to defeat their
attempts at protecting our moral values...;-)
There is also a mechanical way to do this - by
defeating an internal switch (described on
bealecorner.com?), but I did not attempt it.